


you, it’s because I have you

by Star_less



Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: (if you squint), Anxiety Attacks, Bullied Peter, Bullying, Father-Son Relationship, Field Trip AU, Field trips, Flash is an Asshole, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Infantilism, Irondad, One Shot, Parent Tony Stark, Platonic Relationships, Poor Peter Parker, Post-Avengers (2012), Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Scary Stories, Short One Shot, Tony Stark Has A Heart, iron dad and spidey son, papa bear tony stark, pre iw, spideyson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-18 11:16:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16993983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_less/pseuds/Star_less
Summary: “And I will always, always come to save you if you need saving, Peter.” Tony promises in the most sincere tone of voice he has because— because it’s true, it’s always true. “You know, Iron Man, kinda in the job description...”It’s more than that. It’s always more. Peter is his, just as much his as May’s, and he always will be.Peter is on a field trip for a whole week and is already being sniped at by Flash. Tony Stark comes to the rescue when Peter just finds things get... a little too much a little too soon.





	you, it’s because I have you

**Author's Note:**

> Oh look. More!  
> It’s late so I don’t have much to say about this one other than: Peter acts very slightly younger than usual in this fic, that tends to be the way I write him, that’s why the infantilism tag is there. Pass on by or give this a squizz, whatever :)

“Parker, fucking move!” Flash grunted, his hands coming toward Peter’s shoulders. 

Peter looks down again, psyching himself up for the thousandth time as queasiness floods his stomach. Pushed forward by Flash Thompson Peter yowls embarrassingly loudly, his grip slipping and all of a sudden he’s—holy shit— a sickening few inches away from free falling. In an instant, his breath catches in his throat, his vision blurs, something sours in the apples of his cheeks as though he’s going to throw up. He feels something tight come in on his chest— like a rubber band—and when he breaths in-out-in he finds himself suddenly wheezy. Go, he urges himself.   
You’re fine.  
Go.  
You’re safe.  
Go.  
Peter scuttles forward, scuttles to the thin precipice between staying firmly where he is and going careening through the air before his belly starts doing sour somersaults and something soars, all thick and sour, into his throat and for a moment he thinks he really is going to sick up on himself in fear.   
Shakily he breathes in. Shakily he breathes out. Shakily he tries to imagine May telling him not to panic; shakier still he tries to imagine Mr. Stark telling him he’s being such a brave boy, like all good superheroes should be.  
“I- I can’t,” he pleads to no one other than the May and Mr. Stark in his imagination, whimpering (because really, what was Flash going to care) while squeezing his eyes shut the second he dared look beneath him. Even looking downwards made the ground bow and wobble beneath him, as though he was falling even though his feet were glued to the floor. He shivered. No matter how hard he tried - no matter if he tried to envisage being mid-flight with Iron Man or being cuddled and coached through it step by step by Aunt May, or having Karen’s comforting voice dancing in his ears - he couldn’t make the world around him melt away to just... suck it up and take the leap. It was... it was different. When he was Spider-Man, Spider-Man was safe. So... so was Iron Man... so was a cuddle with May. But this... The assistant had insisted that the zipwire course was so safe a toddler could use it but— Flash said, he said people had died on this course, ‘their cords - just mysteriously snapped. The forest below? Their graveyard. Now they haunt the course waiting for someone else to rot with them, for someone else’s cord to snap... I’ll make sure it’s yours.’  
It sounded like a silly scary story to Peter’s ears but then, just as he climbed up to the starting point, he quickly began to reconsider. Flash had a glint in his eye when he spoke... and if Peter so much as looked downward into the shadowy copse of trees beneath his feet... well, perhaps it was just his imagination, but he swore he could see shadowy, whispering figures whirl their way between the branches of the trees; whirl and laugh menacingly right in his ears; whirl and whisper, ‘we’re going to get you, Peter!’

Peter was currently on day two of a compulsory week-long field trip, and in a sick twisted stroke of luck the teen had somehow been placed in a bedroom with the one and only Flash Thompson. Ned had meant to have been pairing up with Peter... if only he hadn’t been struck down with the flu two days before. And in an even sicker stroke of luck, Peter had been allotted to the compulsory zipwire experience rather than the white water rafting as he had so desperately wanted. Which wouldn’t have been a problem, except...

...except for the tiny fact that he, Spider-Man... was deathly afraid of heights. 

“Language, Mr. Thompson!” Peter hears his teacher say softly, but his voice is so far away he could have been talking to them from the surface of the moon as far as Peter’s concerned. He swallows again, thickly, flinching when a hand landed on his back. Oh no.   
Every nerve in his body fires. He whimpers, tearing the clasped hand off of him in a panic. “Getoffmegetoffmegetoffme!”  
His voice is fraying with anxiety because what if that was Flash? it— it was Flash and Flash was right and he was going to throw him off and Peter was going to die and oh he didn’t want to die all the way out here all by himself he wanted May he wanted Mr Stark he—

“Peter— Peter, take a few deep breaths for me, it’s okay, we’re going to get you down now and you can have a little break,” coaches a voice, still far away but... not too far. Slowly Peter snivels, comes back to himself, cheeks burning as he slides down the ladder slowly, shakily, every breath an effort to force in and out of his lungs. His pulse roars like wildfire in his ears and his heart feels as though it’s going to beat out of his chest... but no matter what level of autopilot he’s on, no matter what planet he’s orbiting on where everybody else sounded ever so far away...

He could hear Flash yelling, “Parker, you’re a pussy!” loud and clear.  
~

“Face it, Parker, you really are a fucking pussy,” Flash announces bluntly, laughing as he settled on the bed opposite Peter’s in their shared bedroom. It wasn’t a ha-ha laugh, but neither was it a teasing laugh... it was a hollow, pissed off kind of laugh that forces Peter’s heart right down to his feet. “We would have won that race if it wasn’t for you. I would have gotten the trophy!”

Peter opens his mouth. Then he closes it again. What... what else could he say? ‘Oh, I was really scared’?! ‘Oh, my Aunt says I shouldn’t have to do things that give me anxiety attacks’??!  
No, that would get him crucified, and it was only his second day... even if it was the truth.   
“I.. I’m going to bed.” He sniffles lightly, shifting in his bedsheets to flick off the lamp on his bedside. He didn’t really want to sleep, for it was only 10:30 and he didn’t feel in the slightest bit tired, but he was missing May and he was missing Stark and... well, he was still anxious about Flash’s silly spooky stories, still fragile over his near anxiety attack... and he had been chewed out by Flash ever since they had gotten back to the quiet of their room. He didn’t want the bully to see his eyes glistening with tears as they were. 

Unfortunately, he’s not quite quick enough. “Oh my God,” Flash jeers, rolling his eyes. “You’re crying?! Grow up, Parker. Where’s your bwest fwiend Tony Stark now, huh? He can’t save you. Face it, he’d never save you. He doesn’t like you, Peter, you’re just a deluded freak.”

Peter sniffles - and even if he knows deep within his heart it’s nowhere close to being true it still makes something funny ache in his chest like he’s going to cry a little. He dims his light, pulls the blankets tightly over his head and forces himself into silence — trying to quieten the thrum in his heart and his breaths that go in and out out and in (calm this time); not that Flash would be able to hear him breathe, of course, but... but he just wants to huddle down into the mattress... huddle down so tight and so small he‘ll disappear, if that’s even possible. Peter lays there for what feels like aeons baking in his blanket cocoon, but he’s used to it. He waits in the silence until Flash falls to snoring obnoxiously and peeps out, hesitantly, from the cocoon. A bar of light from the moon shines into the room— something which would comfort Peter immensely if it wasn’t for the rattles and howls that follow because Peter knows, Peter knows instinctively in a fierce bundle of Spidey senses that it’s the—the ghosts from earlier on and Flash is right and they’re gonna get him and and and— and he needs to go home, he needs May he needs Stark he needs home he—  
Gasping, Peter ducks underneath his blankets again and squeezes his eyes as tightly shut as they can feasibly go. Mr Stark, Mr Stark, Mr Stark— he needs, he needs Mr Stark, he needs Aunt May— perhaps if he wishes hard enough they’ll appear and oh he wishes, he lies there and listens to his heart beat and the howls and he wishes as hard as a boy can possibly wish but they don’t appear and it’s just him and the howls and Flash. 

Peter peeps out again, peeps out and sees the door to their room slightly open, a stripe of light from the hallway making its way in and then... then he knows what he has to do. Slowly Peter creeps from the bed - walking cautiously on tiptoe as anxious tremors wrack his body - and he disappears down the hall.

The lobby. 

There’s a phone in the lobby.   
~

“Mr. Stark, Mr. Stark please pick up,” Peter weeps to the dialling tone, hands shaking out of a sickly mix of anxiety and adrenaline. This is the third time he’s tried now.  
Ripping the phone away from his ear he shakes as he punches in the number again and pushes the phone to his ear, licks his lips and listens to the ring in his ears.

“Peter? Peter...”

Stark.

His voice is soft, slow with sleepiness stitching it together— it seems as though Peter has woken him up; either that or he’s had too many drinks to be able to function. But God; the relief that floods every part of Peter’s body comes in an instant - his knees go weak, his eyes go wet. “Mr. Stark,” he stutters tearfully, praying and praying that Stark hasn’t been drinking, that Stark will come and get him, that Stark is going to make things okay. “Mr. Stark, please, I need you to pick me up, I need to come home, I want to come home.” He whispers, his voice trembling with tears as he waits for Stark’s reaction.   
And... what is Stark’s reaction...? Just the sound of Peter’s voice dissolving into tears is enough to lift Tony from his workshop, cell pressed to his ear as he grabs the keys to the car—

(It would be the Iron Man suit, much quicker, but with Peter sounding so anxious he’s not sure he’ll be able to get him home safely in flight)

—and murmurs. He’s on autopilot, already setting off, and he barely knows what’s wrong— Peter could have just skinned his knee for all he knows and yet he’s acting as if Peter’s lost a limb. “What’s going on, Pete? You sick? Oh no, you didn’t catch the flu like Ned?”

“No, Mr. Stark...” Peter snivels, bunching his toes into the carpeted floor and shifting. For a moment the line goes quiet and there is just crackling between the two as Peter fights to find the right kinds of words. “I-I’ll..” he stammers, “I’ll tell you when you come and get me,” he pleads, lip quivering. Tony sighs softly, rubs his temple. “Alright, sit tight, I’m coming...” he promises. There’s... nothing else he can do. What else? Sure, he can sit there and tell the kiddo to go back to bed and calm down but... kiddo’s gone for a whole week and Tony isn’t sure he can cope with a whole week of a tearful teenager rousing him in the early hours. 

(Plus, Tony isn’t sure his heart could withstand the guilt of sending a crying Peter back to bed alone.)  
~

“So, what happened?” Tony bribes conversationally as he glances at his boy in the midst of driving along the highway having snuck him and his luggage into the car. Peter is curled up in the passenger seat, eyes pulsing with exhaustion. The golden glowing puddles of light outside that occasionally throw brightness into the car are the only things keeping Peter’s eyes from closing. The young boy is quiet; sometimes snivelling. “I had an anxiety attack this morning,” he whispers, wriggling as uncomfortable worms of shame start to unfurl in his belly because, heh, it’s hardly as if Tony Stark has panic attacks, right? No. No. It’s just him.  
“They made me go on a zipwire.”

“Ah,” Tony says, grimacing because of course Peter didn’t like heights, how could they not know he didn’t like heights? Why didn’t they send him on the rafting thing? He wanted to do the rafting— “I thought you were—” he frowns, quirks a brow, and Peter near dissolves in front of him, all wet faced. “No,” Peter says around the lump in his throat, “Had to zipwire wi’ Flash.”

Flash... Tony recognises that name. “Kid from school?”

Peter nods and is mute, coughing around the sudden hot lump in his throat. He picks nervously at his fingernails and ducks down as if he’s trying to make himself as small as possible so perhaps Tony would drop the subject but Tony simply copies, dipping his head in return. “Flash?” He repeats.

“He called me a pussy.” Peter whimpers. He’s been called worse; he’s been called worse at school, in the media, on missions— but this one somehow hit home. “S- said you wouldn’t come n’ get me, said I was a deluded freak.”

Tony’s already incensed—

“...he’s right. This is pathetic. Heights... what kinda superhero is scared of heights.” 

— but that tips him over the edge. “Uh... a lot of people, kiddo.” Tony says - in that infuriatingly special kind of voice that only grown ups have, the ‘I'm right and here’s why’ voice, that Peter can’t quite master because he’s still so irritatingly small. 

Steve shares Peter’s fear of heights. Natasha can’t stand closed-in spaces, Bruce goes into a panic over needles. And Tony..?

“You’re scared of the dark?”

Tony has to laugh because Peter sounds so incredulous.

Peter _is_ incredulous. Tony Stark... scared of such a small thing like darkness?

Tony nods. “Yep. Terrified. Not right now, because I have you.” He adds, deciding not to mention that his nyctophobia was caused by his journey into space thanks to Thor’s whack-job of a brother. 

Something about what Tony says makes Peter feel warm; _you, it’s because I have you_ , and he sinks and smiles just a little — yes, if Tony squints he can see the ghost of a smile on Peter’s lips. It’s like it has waved a magic wand within Peter, made the badness fade at once.

Good.

“And I will always, always come to save you if you need saving, Peter.” Tony promises in the most sincere tone of voice he has because— because it’s true, it’s always true. “You know, Iron Man, kinda in the job description...”  
It’s more than that. It’s always more. Peter is his, just as much his as May’s, and he always will be. At a red light with a heart full of warmth, Tony cards his free hand through Peter’s hair. The teen is already sinking in the top-big chair, ready to submit to sleep but Tony’s touch turns him to velvety butter like he’s slipping through Stark’s fingers as he crumples fully; lips parted in letting out one slow sleepy sigh.

Typical, Tony thinks, catching a glimpse of the boy sleeping in the moonlight, pour your heart out for the kid and he’s asleep.   
Jesus, is he really that boring? He supposes, squinting along the highway, that he has a hour and a half or so before kiddo wakes up bursting for a pee (or a drink or just a damn cuddle) and so that’s a hour and a half or so to find out.

Or, to find out all what he can possibly find on this Flash kid.

Nobody—morals be damned, kid or not—hurts his kid and gets away with it.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m going to bed. Lol!  
> Please throw a kudos my way or a comment if you liked this. I love them. I guess this is similar to my other fic (can’t give you back to your bad dreams) but I like it anyway and I hope you do too.
> 
> *...zzz..*


End file.
